TACTICAL Aid Unit officer Sgt Paul Grindrod told of his shock when he realised he'd been stabbed by Kamel Bourgass.

TACTICAL Aid Unit officer Sgt Paul Grindrod told of his shock when he realised he'd been stabbed by Kamel Bourgass.

He was in charge of one of the TAU groups of officers waiting outside the flat. None of the uniformed officers were aware that at least two of the men being guarded inside were major terrorist suspects.

Standing in the witness box at the Old Bailey, Sgt Grindrod said: "The mood appeared to be relaxed." Asked what his knowledge had been about what was going on, he replied: "Limited, really. Special Branch officers would tell me very little. However, I was always led to believe that things were under control."

A Manchester police officer for 25 years, he was wearing body armour - a stab vest - when the disturbance broke out inside Flat 4. "I heard a commotion, distressed voices. Initially I was stunned by the sound. But then I raced upstairs."

Sgt Grindrod discovered a struggle going on in the hallway, where Bourgass was trying to escape "with some determination and focus". He continued: "Then I recall - having become part of that group - a piercing pain to the back and upper part of my leg. I became aware that I had been stabbed.

"Initially I was shocked, having realised what had happened. But it occurred to me that, certainly at that moment, I was OK. I could still carry on."

Injury

Returning to the fight, he saw Bourgass still waving the knife around wildly. "He was intent on leaving that flat. It didn't seem to matter who was trying to restrain him or get in his way. It appeared to me that anyone who was part of that struggle could have been severely injured or killed."

At one stage in the trial, Sgt Grindrod was asked to leave the witness box to demonstrate both how Bourgass was held back by Det Con Oake and where he, himself, was stabbed in the leg. Just a few feet away, Bourgass looked on impassively from the dock.

After Bourgass was finally restrained and handcuffed, Sgt Grindrod said his attention was drawn to Det Con Oake. "He was slumped on the floor out in the stairs. There was no life in him. His face was grey and I realised it was critical.

"I tried to get a response from him. I shouted at him, pinched his ear lobe at one time, but there was no response."

Ignoring his own stab wound, Sgt Grindrod attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. "I was then assisted by someone else who was doing heart massage."

Eventually one paramedic arrived, followed by a second. Sgt Grindrod later helped take Det Con Oake down to the ambulance on a trolley. He also went back inside the flat to check his own TAU officers, who had, by now, handcuffed the two remaining male prisoners.

His own stab injury was bleeding. "I could feel some pain and my leg started to seize up." Sgt Grindrod was taken in a police vehicle to the North Manchester General Hospital and treated for a leg wound. He was among officers detained in hospital in order to check they had not been infected with ricin poison. Released the following day, he was off duty for two weeks because of the leg injury.

Bourgass was found not guilty of attempting to murder Sgt Grindrod but guilty - by an 11 to one majority - of wounding him with intent, for which he received a jail sentence of eight years.